A Q&A with the snowboarding legend about his triumphant return

By Zachary Weiss

Share This

24 December 2018

There are few personalities in the world of snowboarding that can command a room quite like Jake Burton. The 64-year-old creator of Burton Snowboards — and creator of the sport, according to many — counts Olympic athletes, Hollywood stars and blue-chip modern artists like Jeff Koons among his inner circle. And unsurprisingly, he had party guests lining up to greet him at the recent launch of his company's new collection, MINE77.

The new collection, built on ultra-functional alpine essentials, was designed by Burton himself, who felt it was time to reconnect with his roots. “It was just sort of this pent-up energy,” he told InsideHook. “I never knew I was creating until I almost died, and then I figured it out.”

After a diagnosis and long recovery from a rare form of Guillain-Barré disease called Miller Fisher Syndrome, which causes severe damage to nerves, Burton returned to his Burlington, Vermont, headquarters with a new outlook.

"It was sort of born a little bit out of ... not frustration ... but wanting to do stuff for Burton that couldn’t be done for whatever reason. Sh*t I wanted to do,” he told InsideHook. “I realized never really lived in the moment. It’s pretty stressful to build a company then to go through what I went through, so this was a chance to sort of start over. We talked about the idea for a while, then Donna, my wife, said, ‘Just go for it man.’”

Burton MINE77 (3 images)

The result is, as Burton says himself, an “insane” array of accessories, basics and head-turning show pieces. Among them, there’s a magnetic-locking helmet and goggle system, tie-dye and bandana-printed hoodies and pants with ample pocket space, and the crowd favorite “dirty pant," born from an unlikely source of inspiration.

“I got this picture of this guy who looked like he just got off his day job at Jiffy Lube, and guess I kind of always liked the gas-station look,” Burton said as he showed off splatter-printed snow pants. “They’re bright white pants, but you don’t care if you get dirt on them. You can just climb into the back of your truck and you don’t give a f*ck. They’re just already dirty on purpose.”

Altogether, these small-batch designs are the most personal items to date for the bootstrapped entrepreneur-turned-snowboaring magnate, who sold his first board just over 40 years ago. “It’s everything I’ve ever wanted in snowboarding in all of my years,” Burton said. “This whole process has been rejuvenating, and I never use that word, but it’s all here, and I’m super proud of it. It’s called MINE for a reason.”